


i've been hurt like this before

by viscassia



Category: Mean Girls - Richmond/Benjamin/Fey
Genre: D slur, F/F, Fluff, Homophobia, happy pride month gays, it's very soft, take this gay shit off my hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-20 18:23:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18998041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viscassia/pseuds/viscassia
Summary: “Did you see the way Janis looked at her? It’s like—is she in love with her or something? She just met her! And, god, don’t get me started on that. You can’t just fall in love with someone you just met, right? I mean, that’s just not how things fucking work, and—”//alternatively: regina's in love with janis sarkisian. she always has been. circumstance has just not treated them as kindly as she hoped.





	i've been hurt like this before

**Author's Note:**

> hello !! welcome to my first (and hopefully not last) rejanis fic. this is my first time writing the two, so pls tell me how it goes !! i hope you enjoy
> 
> this is mostly set in the musical!verse, if you couldn't tell. i think the musical really adds a lot more to their characters—when compared to the movie, at least, so i find it much easier to write with it in mind.
> 
> also i lov taylor louderman so much.
> 
> have fun.

Regina George knows she’s in love with Janis Sarkisian.

She’s known since time immemorial. She’s known this since they were 6-years old, sticking their tiny hands in mud and making their parents mad by getting it all over their new clothes. She’s known since they were 10, rocking back and forth on seesaws until she _falls, falls, falls_ and hits the ground and scrapes her knee. The tears _fall, fall, fall_ and Janis holds her until her mom comes. She remembers the soft smile of relief on Janis’ face that day, the feel of her palm entwined in hers as she showed off the pink and yellow band-aid adorned on her new battle scar. That day is painted pink and yellow too in memory. Regina stares into Janis’ dark brown eyes and she _falls, falls, falls_ ...straight into Janis’ arms when they’re 13 and dancing around her room to September by Earth, Wind, and Fire. The song plays through Regina’s new Bose speakers and fills the room in deep reverbs. Her parents aren’t home so they don’t care less who hears and she laughs when Janis plants a small kiss on her forehead before spinning her around the room again.

She blames _that_ for the sudden lightheadedness she feels as she raises her arms up and sings along.

_My thoughts are with you / Holding hands with your heart to see you / Only blue talk and love / Remember how we knew love was here to stay_

Regina George knows she’s in love with Janis Sarkisian. She knows this even when she starts spending less time with her when school ends, or when she places herself across from her instead of by her side during lunch time. She knows this when she stops inviting her over for movie nights at her place and when she yells at her over the phone to _not_ come over for her birthday because _Janis_ was a lesbian and she just couldn’t have a lesbian at her birthday party.

Her other friends at the time laughed along with her, cold and cruel and all too happy, but she spends the night after that party tossing and turning in bed and clutching her new flip phone in her clammy hand, Janis’ number haunting her on the digital screen.

She doesn’t call.

When Janis doesn’t show up at school the next day, she stomps any trace of regret that dares scratch at her soul. Her friends roll their eyes and call her a _space dyke_ and she plays along with it, doesn’t even ask her mother when she gets home later to check up with Mrs. Sarkisian on where Janis was today. She wasn't interested.

Regina thinks that maybe she isn’t in love with Janis after all.

Love could never be this cruel.

 

Janis returns after a year. She has red streaks in her hair and wears black nail polish on hands that are always, always, _always_ stained with paint. She wears big jackets and dark clothes and always hangs out with some bigger kid whose name she couldn’t quite remember. Danny? Dale? Regardless, she has promptly replaced Regina with someone who is no doubt kinder and braver than she could ever be because the other girls in school still make fun of her and she hardly bats an eye.

They carve _dyke_ into her locker and kick her out of the girls’ dressing room and Regina never does anything about it either.

Janis is never invited to any of the parties that Regina finds herself at every weekend. Janis is never in any of her classes (probably care of Ms. Norbury). Janis is never at her house, or at her lunch table, or at her side. This was the new normal—she could handle that. After all, if Regina had never pushed her away, she’d be in the exact same position.

A loser. A nobody. A _dyke._

She struts the school like she owns it with Karen Smith and Gretchen Wieners by her side. She becomes uncaring and snappy and hateful, but she’s worshipped for it. Venerated, even. Everyone _loves_ her for it. This is all she’s ever wanted and she couldn’t be happier. Nothing could take her down from her high, not even when Janis smiles at Danford or Dewey or David with _that_ look that she always thought was reserved for her. Not even when Janis starts winning art awards and still invites her mother and _Kylie_ (but never her) to her shows. Not even when Janis has seemingly accepted Regina out of her life and has the audacity to still be thriving in her own trademarked Janis way.

Regina George _hates_ Janis Sarkisian—if only because she’s been conditioned to. She hates Janis when she smiles at her, cold and unforgiving once Karen and Gretchen and Cady banish her from their table. She hates Janis when she admits to being the mastermind behind it all, her weight gain, her friends’ betrayal, her ruined skin. She hates Janis when the other girls carry her out of the gym on their backs, everything in the past forgotten as they hail their new queen.

She rushes out, unwilling to let a single tear fall from her eyes.

 

Regina George remembers she’s in love with Janis Sarkisian when she gets hit by the bus, dies for 15 entire seconds, and wakes up in a white, sterilised hospital room. She remembers because while she secretly does love her mother and she is _so, so, so_ thankful that Karen and Gretchen still cared enough about her to visit, she still found herself wanting a different person holding her numb hand.

Later that night, she finds herself staring at the empty chair beside her hospital bed, wondering what might have happened, who might have sat there if she hadn’t messed up so badly only a few years before.

The next few days pass by slowly. She’s in and out of consciousness and sometimes she imagines the smell of dried paint and familiar lavender soap. Sometimes she imagines a low voice crying, and apologising, and _begging_ her to be okay again.

When she wakes up, it’s never _her_ though. It could never be.

Regina George remembers she’s in love with Janis Sarkisian when she shows up to Spring Fling in a _horrendous_ purple suit and she still finds her beautiful. The haze that she’s been drowning in since the bus incident hasn’t cleared, but she recognises the strange warmth in her stomach, even while hopped up on pain medication and paralysed in a stiff spinal halo. Cady gives a speech about acceptance and kindness or whatever later that night after winning Spring Fling Queen and she honestly wouldn’t have cared less if not for the fact that it led to her dancing only a few meters away from Janis that night.

(Given, she wasn’t quite dancing but more of swaying from side to side while her friends jumped and raved around her. Her back ached progressively more by the second, but if this was the burden she had to bear to stay this close to the girl whom she used to call her best friend, she would endure it.)

The DJ queues up ‘September’ and her heart skips a beat when she meets Janis’ eyes from where she was dancing beside Damian and Karen. They don’t quite dance together, per se, but she shares more than one _genuine_ smile with Janis during the song and it makes her stomach feel all tingly and her cheeks feel all warm and she can’t quite blame her meds for the sudden weightlessness she feels.

_Do you remember the 21st night of September? / Love was changing the minds of pretenders / While chasing the clouds away_

Janis talks to her after Spring Fling and they share a round of apologies and Regina cries a lot—and Janis cries too, but they share a hug and Regina knows without a doubt that she was still in love with Janis Sarkisian even after all this time. Janis Sarkisian who could forgive her despite everything. Janis Sarkisian who had told her that it would take a while for them to be friends again, but definitely _someday_. Janis Sarkisian with her bleached hair and her paint-stained fingers and her stupid brown eyes that only managed to get more beautiful over time.

She smiles the whole way home and thanks whatever god is out there that her mother doesn’t grill her about it.

 

Senior year is crazy because she’s neither plastic nor cruel.

The kids in school don’t part like the red sea when she walks down the hall anymore and during lunch she’s surrounded by art nerds and theatre geeks and the occasional mathlete. She joins the lacrosse team and channels the rage her therapist was always on her dick about elsewhere. She meets new friends and keeps old ones and in the centre of all this reformation and recovery is Janis, Janis, _Janis._

Janis who starts coming over on Saturday nights to watch movies and help her study and listen to her stories and everything in between.

Janis who brings her hot chocolate every morning without fail just like she did when they were kids.

Janis who she drives to school and back, blasting trashy pop or 80s music or the alternative rock she secretly loves.

“ _Maybe it’s not my weekend—but it’s gonna be my year! And I’m so sick of watching all these minutes pass as I go nowhere!_ ” she half-yells, half-giggles out because Janis is thrashing her head in the passenger's seat and playing some crazy chords on her air guitar and _god_ she’s so in love with this girl she can hardly breathe sometimes. They pull over at the Sarkisian house and she walks her to the door like always, except this time she can’t help but pull Janis into a hug and press her lips against her cheek. Janis stiffens for a second, but before Regina can feel guilty about it and pull away, she feels strong arms wrap around her frame and her body is pressed flush against Janis and, _wow_ , if she couldn’t breathe before, she sure as hell can’t now.

“I missed you, ‘Gina.” Janis whispers against her hair. She wonders how it was possible to both break and heal a heart in four words.

“I missed you too,” she says, breathing in lavender and paint and sweat.

She doesn’t want to but, after a small eternity, she finally lets her go. She walks down the driveway and waves goodbye to the girl who’s still standing at her front porch, signature denim jacket and combat boots and all. Regina wonders how she could have ever let her go in the first place.

They spend the rest of the year healing and hurting and hanging out. It’s like they’re 6, or 10, or 13 again except this time the warmth that Regina always felt as a kid burns a little too hot every so often—well, only when Janis buys those denim shorts that ride a little higher than usual on her long legs, really. Or when she chops off most of her hair to frame her face better and asks Regina with a nervous smile if she likes it and, sure, she says yes but she has to excuse herself to the bathroom because it’s kind of making her really flustered. Or when Janis is drunk at her first party and curled around Regina’s legs, pressing her lips to her neck and calling her ‘babe’ and asking her for water like she could move if she tried.

 _God_ , she’s in love with this girl. But she could never tell her. Not after everything that had happened between them. Not when she used these very feelings, this very situation to ruin Janis’ life the first time. She brings Janis home that night and makes sure she gets to bed alright. She tucks her in and leaves a glass of water and some paracetamol by her side dresser, tiptoeing out of the house so as not to wake her parents.

It’s in her car, during her drive home at 2 in the morning, that she makes a silent pact to never tell her. It would change everything—and she doesn’t want that.

She’s okay with how they are now. She’s _more_ than okay with it, really.

 

In the middle of senior year, when Janis introduces her to her new girlfriend, _Ava_ or something, she doesn’t even flinch, doesn’t even do anything apart from smile and nod and eat her cheese fries that have suddenly gone tasteless. Ava is a transferee from some art school in California and she’s gorgeous. She has tanned skin and dark eyes and freckles all over her nose and shoulders. Her black hair rides in waves down her back and she dresses like a movie star straight out of a chick flick beach movie—minus the tackiness. Janis looks at her like she holds the world in her calloused hands and Regina tries not to throw up.

She pointedly ignores the worried look that Damian is sending her across the table and leaves school early that day, feigning a stomachache.

Regina cries to Cady later, pacing her bedroom while trying to wipe out the frustrated tears that keep pooling in her eyes. “I just don’t get it! She’s not even that pretty or anything. I didn’t even know she existed until, like, _yesterday_ ,” Regina says between sniffles. “Like, is she even Janis’ type? She doesn’t deserve her.”

“Regina…” Cady starts, and she can’t even be bothered with the fact that she basically just outed herself _and_ confessed that she lo— _liked_ Janis to the other girl, all in the course of a few minutes. _Curse_ this whole ‘being in touch with your feelings’ bullshit. She kind of missed being a heartless bitch.

“Not just that! She didn’t even tell me anything about this! Like, don’t I at least deserve to know? Aren’t I, like, her best friend now or something? Did _you_ know? Did Damian? Gretch? _Karen?_ Why didn’t anyone tell me?” her breaths are coming out quick and hard now, accompanied by a familiar ache in her chest. “I mean—this just came out of fucking nowhere!”

“Regina…”

“Did you see the way Janis looked at her? It’s like—is she in love with her or something? She just met her! And, _god_ , don’t get me started on that. You can’t just fall in love with someone you just met, right? I mean, that’s just not how things fucking work, and—”

“Regina!” Cady yells, shutting her up. Regina suddenly feels warm hands on her own, steeling herself back into the room to focus on the girl in front of her who is meeting her gaze with worried green eyes. “Regina, you need to calm down.”

Cady leads her to the bed and she takes a breath as she sits down beside her, rubbing her back. Regina waves off the urge to pull away from the touch and tries to remember her therapist’s words— _it’s okay to need help and accept comfort from friends when you need it._

“Regina, I know that this was, like, unexpected and all, but Janis seems happy, right?”

Regina looks back at the laughs Janis and Ava had shared at the lunch table earlier today, the unquestionable chemistry between the two as they bantered back and forth about painting and art and things that she knew basically nothing about. She tries to piece them apart, looking for something in Janis’ smile that wasn’t there when they hung out together and frustratingly finds nothing. “I mean...I guess.”

“And you should be happy that she’s happy, yeah?”

Regina frowns. Yes, she _should_ be, but Cady didn’t get it. She wasn’t. She wasn’t happy that Janis had found someone who would end up replacing her. She wasn’t happy that Janis had found another girl to spend her Saturday nights with, another girl to hang off when she was drunk at parties, another girl who could bring her home on the weekdays. She wasn’t happy that Janis had found someone and this _someone_ wasn’t her and, yes, it was unfair and hypocritical considering the only reason this was happening was because of something she did when she was a kid, and—she stops.

The sudden shift in the air is noticed by Cady as well who timidly turns to her. “Uh...Regina?”

Regina has stopped crying. She isn’t sad anymore. In fact, she isn’t really feeling much of anything anymore. A wave of numbness hits her and it’s like she’s in the hospital bed again, high on pain medication and being sustained by an IV. Despite the haze, however, something is made astoundingly clear to her.

She’s spent too long hurting Janis to even have had a chance with her, and she knew deep down that Janis would have found _someone_ eventually. That someone just so happened to be Ava.

The nights they spent on Regina’s sofa bed, tentatively cuddling while watching Netflix, the times they’d danced and rocked out in Regina’s car all while sharing knowing looks and unbridled laughter, the times they’d talk and catch up on the phone, trying to repair years of broken friendship and pain—it was bold of Regina to think that meant anything more than what it was.

She lost her chance years ago.

She gets it.

“I’ll be okay, Cady,” she breathes out, quiet but steady. “Thank you for listening.”

Cady nods, a little taken aback at the change but taking this as a sign to leave, which Regina is thankful for. She doesn’t really want company right now.

Cady is halfway out the door when Regina speaks again.

“And, if you could keep this a secret, especially from Janis...I’d really appreciate it.”

Another nod. Regina trusted Cady with keeping her word—way more than she would Gretchen, anyway. She notes that Cady didn’t even seem surprised about her admission of feelings, her coming out. Perhaps she was more obvious than she thought these past few months.

That doesn’t quite bother her as much as it would have a year ago.

Regina George knows she’s in love with Janis Sarkisian, after all, but she also knows that there’s no chance she’d ever be loved back. Not in the same way, at least.

 

She graduates with honours because head-bitch-in-charge or not, she’s never been stupid. She stands on-stage, white robes and grad-cap and all, beaming at her mother and her sister who are cheering loudly from the front row. She hears the applause of her batchmates, the people she had terrorised and apologised to and befriended, all clapping in some robotic solidarity of _finally_ leaving high school. They all wash away when she meets Janis’ gaze—Janis who is staring at her like she’s the queen of the universe, who is grinning so wide and so unabashedly happy, who is whooping her name out even in the sea of applause her voice was being drowned in.

(Janis who broke up with Ava a few weeks back. Janis who could only provide an explanation of, ‘she just wasn’t what I was looking for’ paired with a meaningful look Regina still couldn’t wipe out of her mind. Janis who was heading to a university only a couple blocks away from her own. Janis who promised to keep in touch once they graduated. Janis whom she loved so, so, so much.)

She accepts her diploma, and bows, and struts down the stage with all the confidence and flamboyance of an earlier time.

When she takes her seat beside Cady in the honours section, they share a grin and it feels like a beginning more than it does an end.

When the ceremony is over and she bids her mother and Kylie goodbye, promising to meet them back home for dinner later, she can’t help but fling herself towards Janis, laughing as the taller girl spins her around and around while their friends cheered around them—and it really is like they’re 13 again, dancing to ‘September’ in unparalleled synchronisation, Janis leading and Regina willingly allowing herself to be dragged around. They’re spinning, and spinning, and spinning, and the world is blurring into blacks and whites and blues all around them, and all she can see is Janis’ hair, Janis’ eyes, Janis’ lips.

Regina kisses her without warning and the spinning stops.

Her friends go quiet and Janis’ lips are stiff and unmoving and, _god_ , what the fuck is wrong with her? This was stupid and she couldn’t help it and, oh _fuck_ , she’s ruined everything _again_ , Janis would hate her because she didn’t even _like_ Regina that way and she probably wasn’t over Ava yet and her friends would leave her and she’d probably be hit by another bus given the way the world worked and—and Janis starts kissing back.

Janis’ lips start moving against hers, slowly at first but building in confidence by the second. Regina _melts_ and pulls the other girl closer and she hears Damian yell, ‘fucking _finally_ ’ somewhere to her left but she can’t really care less about the offhand comment because _Janis is kissing her back_. The world starts spinning again but she thinks that might just be because her heart rate has sped up too fast in too short of a span of time.

When she finally pulls away, she looks up at Janis who seems shocked and lost...but happy. Janis who is smirking at her with a look that was just downright _insufferable_ . Janis who holds her waist, dipping her back a little in a way that makes her even more dizzy than she already was. Janis who says, “Who’s the space dyke now?” in a tone that should have been mean but only comes out as tender and loving and _beautiful_.

Janis kisses her again and, yep, there was never any doubt—Regina George is in love with her.

 _But maybe,_ she thinks as she detects the slightest tremble in Janis’ hands around her waist, she should probably wait for a bit before saying so.

 

**addendum:**

It’s the summer after high school and Regina is the happiest she’s ever been. Apparently, her mother has known since she was 10 and Kylie is too young to be homophobic and the Sarkisians welcomed her back into their lives with open arms the minute Janis told them.

She and her friends spend the summer watching movies at Gretchen’s house, playing bowling in the new alley that opened up right down the block, and eating ice cream at the mall. Cady, Aaron, and Gretchen are going to the other coast for college and they try to spend as much time together as they can with the three before the break ends. It’s good, and every time Regina finds herself surrounded by her unlikely quintet of best friends, she feels herself go warm and bubbly. She thinks that maybe being hit by the bus was the best thing that’s ever happened to her— _hell,_ she’d get hit again and again if it meant being able to live out this future forever.

She and _Janis_ spend the summer wrapped up in each other, holding hands and making out and everything else in between. She sleeps over at Janis’ often (door open, of course, now that their parents knew) and every morning she is greeted with a sight that no Renaissance painting could ever compare to.

Janis, with her messy hair and sleepy eyes and soft smile reserved _only for her._ Janis with her morning voice and her rumpled clothes and her blue bed sheets that haven’t changed since they were kids. Janis who holds her by the waist and kisses her shoulders and lets her know that she is beautiful _despite_ it all.

One morning in July, Janis brings her hot chocolate while she’s still in bed, wrapped up in a comforter that smells of lavender and the popcorn they had eaten last night while watching ‘The Princess and The Frog’. She kisses her awake and places the steaming mug by the dresser, a small packet of cinnamon by its side because Janis knows that Regina only drinks her hot chocolate with a dash of cinnamon.

She can’t help the words that tumble out of her mouth at that moment, the 8am sun streaming in through the blinds of the window, illuminating Janis’ hair and eyes in a golden brown. She’s wearing Regina’s large grey hoodie along with a pair of sports shorts and, sure, Regina has seen Janis in leather jackets and dress shirts, but she swears that this is the most beautiful she’s ever seen her.

“ _God, I love you._ ”

Regina isn’t even scared when Janis takes a moment to let the words settle. She hears the unmistakable sound of frying downstairs, probably Mrs. Sarkisian cooking breakfast. The smell of the hot chocolate is starting to waft around the room and her stomach grumbles a little, but she maintains the steady gaze she has with Janis—her _girlfriend_ , Janis. A few months ago, the staring might have made her insecure, the silence may have crippled her, but she knows what comes next because soon enough, Janis is leaning in and kissing her and she melts like it’s the first time again and, _wow_ , when did she get so soft?

She looks back at the past year, the past five years, her whole life, and she realises that perhaps there was never a time where she’s known Janis Sarkisian and didn’t love her. Regina George has loved Janis Sarkisian since they first met a forever ago. Regina George has loved Janis Sarkisian _because_ and _despite_. She loves her and she would go through it all again. She would spend her whole life trying to prove it and try to make up for ever making Janis doubt it.

She gets lost in the thought of a _whole life_ and once she comes back to the present, Janis is smiling at her. Her hand is on the small of her back and she’s straddling her legs on the bed, face charmingly close. “What? Not worried I won’t say it back?”

“I’d love you even if you never did,” she says, closing the gap between them.

Janis says it back anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> tell me if you can catch where the title is from. i'll give you a digital cookie.  
> rizalistas.tumblr.com


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